


In Out of the Rain

by Ranowa



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Catlock, John Watson Needs A Hug, M/M, Past Abuse, Sherlock Holmes Needs a Hug, Sherlock is half cat, Stalking, good thing they have each other!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27680960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranowa/pseuds/Ranowa
Summary: Late one wet and miserable night, John picks up a stray off his doorstep, and winds up handling far more than he'd bargained for.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 67
Collections: Holmestice Exchange - Winter 2020





	In Out of the Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [0archangel0](https://archiveofourown.org/users/0archangel0/gifts).



> Happy Holmestice!!!
> 
> Now that it's been made public, I'd also like to thank Akarri and paybackraid for helping out as betas and egging me along on the way! <3

John answered the pounding at his door at half past three in the morning, the rain an unending deluge outside and a pervasive chill from the storm that ate him through inside and out, to meet a haggard drowned rat of Gregory Lestrade, and... somebody else.

"Hi, John," Greg panted, just a bit breathless. He dripped water all over the entryway and shifted to pull the arm already over his shoulder even further down. He looked like he'd barely made it up the stairs at all and that he and his companion were about to collapse. "Bit of a long story; can we come in?"

"Uh," he said.

"Just for a bit. Promise, it's--" Greg shuffled a limped step forward without waiting for an answer, tugging his charge with him and almost right into a completely nonplussed John. "Maybe not just for a bit, actually, it's sort of an emergency--"

John was left to stare as Greg staggered inside, and the lanky figure along next to him. There was much grunting and gasping, with the stranger increasingly depending on Greg for support while muttering about it all the while, limping very stiffly as he dripped water just about everywhere. When they finally made it to the sofa it was for him to shake himself about like a wet dog.

"I'm _fine,_ Gavin, so for the _last time,_ will you _please--"_

"You are not fine, and you will sit down before you fall down, do you understand me?"

The stranger wavered with another huff, still supported by Greg and extremely precarious on just one leg. He turned his head, sniffed, and shifted his one good foot with a mighty suck of air.

Then he sagged down onto John's couch with a mighty _wuff,_ and John, still at the door, was left to watch in utter disbelief.

"...So," he deadpanned. "Can I get anybody some tea, or will just the sofa do for now?"

The stranger huffed again, this time wriggling about in his heavy, muddy coat, shrugging off Greg's help all the while. He said nothing, nothing but muffled grunts of pain as he squirmed his shoulders first, and then yanked his hood down with an aggrieved breath, to reveal--

_Oh._

"John," Greg said, more than somewhat warily. His gaze was heavy in the dark, and he watched him almost too closely for comfort. "This is Sherlock. Sherlock, this is John."

"Obviously," the man, _Sherlock,_ huffed. He tossed his head again, shaking wet curls out like a shaggy-haired dog that fell about his ears. His drooping, pointed ears.

John had met hybrids before, of course. He was a doctor. He had met them, even treated a few, and he had certainly seen far stranger.

That still didn't quite mean he was prepared for a man with long, pointed ears, just gently tipped front canines, and a whip-like tail to materialise on his doorstep in the middle of the night.

"Sherlock is a colleague of mine," Greg started again, now glancing between the two of them with a guarded hand on his charge's arm, as if he half-expected him to bolt. "Something happened at a crime scene today, and despite what he'll insist to you about it, he needs medical attention."

The hybrid scoffed again under his breath but did not protest vocally. Nor would he look at John, still frowning stubbornly away in the low light, his arms crossed and his shoulders hunched.

John, meanwhile, was not pleased at all.

"And you brought him to me _why?"_ Despite himself, he still started to roll up his sleeves instead of reaching for his phone, eyes already set upon his petulant patient. "Greg, you know I can't treat someone like this."

"I know, I know, and I promise I wouldn't have brought him here if I thought it was bad, it's just... can you take a look at him? Please?" Greg smiled at him again, right in conjunction with tugging this Sherlock back down to the sofa as he tried to reel off again. "I'll explain later and if you still don't like it then, I'll drive him to hospital myself. Promise."

Well, that wasn't baffling or unsettling at all.

John shifted on his good leg, folding his own arms tightly to look down at his surly patient. Still wet and dripping like Greg, his long ears drooping. Now, John was just able to see the end of his tail, draping over the end of the sofa to curl sadly about his foot.

He didn't have to like it to help.

"What's the problem here, exactly?" John addressed this question to Sherlock, now, dragging his desk chair closer as the only other furniture available in the shabby room. He might've apologised for the mess, the sad decor, the half-empty takeaway box on the table, but they had been the ones to show up unannounced in the middle of the night. "Sherlock?"

"My leg," he snapped stiffly, the admission a bit like pulling teeth. Two bright eyes flickered over John, piercing, almost silver, as John reached to flick on a light. "The same as yours. Though my cause is a bit less psychosomatic."

"I-- excuse me?"

Greg sighed, running a hand over the bridge of his nose. "Not now, Sherlock." He met John's eyes again as he gestured toward the hybrid's right leg, still situated at a very precise and awkward angle against the sofa. "We were at a crime scene, like I said, an old theatre, and this one thought he saw something up in the rafters that he just had to get crawling at. The catwalk fell through."

"Shoddy craftsmanship," Sherlock snapped, with a particularly uncomfortable shift. "I've _crawled around_ on floors plenty older than that. It shouldn't have given through."

"Yeah. But it did. And now we're here, aren't we?"

Sherlock sulked with the surliness exactly befitting a wet street cat, and the look on his face alone was enough to make John grin.

Greg's story did hold true, as he took a closer look. Sherlock's trousers were dusty and dirty, with a long almost-tear down one leg, though they didn't look to have been too clean even before he'd taken his tumble. The limb itself, Sherlock seemed unwilling or unable to move, so John made do with very carefully positioning it himself. He'd seen Sherlock stagger over to the sofa already, and combined with Greg's description of the fall, made for a rather quick diagnosis.

"It's probably broken. A hairline fracture, if you made me guess, but a fracture all the same." He moved to settle his hand on Sherlock's knee, above the swollen, violently bruised injury. But just as his hand made contact, the hybrid twitched back so suddenly, shoulders hunched up and ears perked straight and gone still as stone, that John knew to think better of it.

"You... need an X-ray," he started again, after giving him another moment. The long, unique tail flicked once, like a shudder. "And I don't have the supplies to cast this here."

"Then _get them._ You are a doctor, aren't you, that was the whole point of this?"

John wasn't entirely surprised when Greg let go of Sherlock's arm, gesturing with his head for them to speak in private. Sherlock wouldn't have been the first squirrelly patient he'd treated, certainly. But Greg had not brought him here in the middle of this wet and rainy night for no reason, and it was becoming clear there was nothing John could do if Sherlock wasn't wiling to work with him. Right now, he wasn't.

Something had happened to this man that wasn't just a fall through the floor.

"I know this is weird, and unusual," Greg told him in a hushed voice, making the tea while John leaned himself against the table to watch. His leg hurt. "He can stay with me until he's back on his feet, it's just... do you think there's any way you can get him what you were talking about? The cast, the X-ray, all that?" He hesitated again, starting to chew on his lower lip. "He can't go to hospital."

"He _can't?"_

"Yeah." He looked away, his frown deepened. "He's not a criminal, nothing like that--"

"Well I should hope so, since you brought him to my bloody door!"

"--it's just... complicated." He finished pouring out a cup of tea, handing one to John on autopilot as he scrubbed a tired hand through his hair. "I can't tell you how. Just trust me when I say that everything about Sherlock Holmes is complicated, the very least of which is his appearance." He paused again, this time to give him a knowing look. "Thanks for not staring, by the way. It means more to him than you know... though I'm sure he'll never say it."

It was John's turn to huff. Of course he hadn't _stared._ He wasn't an idiot.

Tea in hand, he looked back at the sullen figure, sitting uncomfortably on his sagging sofa. His ears still drooped with sheer misery, hair dripping, but the tense line of his back and shoulders had softened, just the slightest bit. While John watched, he tried to shift only to still with a grimace. Clearly, despite his facade, he was in no small amount of pain.

John took a small sip of hot tea, and spent a minute rubbing the ache out of his shoulder as best he could.

He picked up the third cup for Sherlock, and strode his way across to rejoin him where he continued to sulk on the sofa, that long, exotic tail curled in his lap to be stroked forlornly like a wet puppy.

John's intention was to simply give Sherlock a minute to gather himself in silence. Instead, this plan, too, was derailed the instant that Sherlock brought the tea to his lips, and reacted by flinching back as if it were rat poison.

"...problem?"

"You added milk," he snapped, eyes almost aglow with disgust.

"Uh. Yeah. I... did." John stared between him and Greg, utterly lost. "Sorry? I can get you another, if you want...?"

But the man did not respond, still tucked around himself and now hugging his arms to his chest, chalk pale and jaw clenched. Greg just shook his head at John's confusion, saying nothing, and after another few moments passed in increasing bafflement, he simply put it out of mind, and faced the man head on.

"Sherlock," he started again. "Can you look at me, please?"

He waited until Sherlock complied to continue on, even though the hybrid was barely looking at him to begin with. He clearly was happier glaring at the corner of the sofa. "I want you to stay here for the night. I work at a surgery, so tomorrow, I'll see what I can do-- hopefully, I'll be able to get you an X-ray after hours, and if everything looks good, cast your leg, and send you on your way."

Sherlock shifted again, squirming himself deeper back into the cushions. "And why should I bother to be poked and prodded, when I am perfectly capable of leaving right now?"

"Because it'll take months longer to heal, if it does at all, it's a bone-headedly stupid thing to do, and you'll wind up looking at surgery and chronic pain for life instead of just a bit of an inconvenience for a month?"

Sherlock-- all but pouted. His ears even drooped a little more, now almost flat against his wet skull.

Squirrelly patient, indeed.

It took him another moment to gather himself, seemingly sullen. But at last he breathed in and tilted his head in a slow, almost stilted nod. "If you insist," he muttered, with yet another glare at Greg.

John could already tell that was the best he was going to get.

With the state of Sherlock's leg and the sadder state of John's sofa, it was decided pretty quickly that it was best for Sherlock to take John's bed. Greg was instantly apologetic about it, but John waved him off; a sorer shoulder tomorrow was easily better than spending the night worrying that his patient with a broken leg had rolled himself to the floor and couldn't get up.

"Sorry I don't have any pajamas that'll fit you," he said, as he and Greg helped the man hobble back through his tiny flat. He was tall but rail-thin, so much so that each step felt dangerously light, and John tightened his hold around one cold wrist. "I'm sure I have an extra blanket around here somewhere..."

"I'm fine." He settled himself down on the edge, mouth in an almost permanent scowl and long, pale hands gripping miserably at his leg. Now, in the darkness of his bedroom, he was so pale he seemed almost alien.

He looked... forlorn. Dejected, almost, with his tail and ears and shoulders all drooping, cold and wet, and now picking at the hem of his ratty trousers and frowning anywhere but at John.

He opened his mouth to say something-- what, exactly, he wasn't sure-- only to find himself cut off by a stern look from Greg.

"I'll be back tomorrow, then?" the DI said, standing back to allow John to help get Sherlock's leg elevated gently on a pillow. "Behave. John's a doctor, but that doesn't mean he has to play nice."

Sherlock rolled his eyes and again said nothing, already making to settle himself on his side. The end of his dark tail slipped out from the blankets to trail along the floor, and in the space of a moment, even with his injured leg, he'd burrowed himself so deeply into the bed all they could see of him was the pointed tips of his ears.

Greg shook his head at John again, looking almost sad, and led the way back out of the room.

* * *

Hybrids were a somewhat rare genetic variation, an unusual feline phenotype present alongside a perfectly normal human intelligence and brain. Cat ears, a cat tail, sharper front teeth, an aversion to water, but after centuries of discrimination and the presumption otherwise, a mind that was no more animal than John's or Greg's. At just under eleven percent of the population, everyone knew one, but nobody could ever stop themselves from staring. John had treated hybrids before, and therefore knew exactly what he was going to find. He knew how the soft, pointed ears felt; he knew what the long length of his tail at the base of his spine looked like. He did not need to stare, and after seeing how uncomfortable and quiet Sherlock was, he made sure not to.

Instead, John followed through on his word: the evening after two drowned rats had turned up on his doorstep, he helped Greg shuffle Sherlock into the clinic after hours, and filled out the paperwork with a wet smudge of ink through what was supposed to be Sherlock's NHS number. He ran the X-ray, confirmed the diagnosis, and then, once again with a Sherlock that was surly and silent, set about immobilising the healing limb for the weeks to come.

"You're going to want to keep off this for six weeks, at least," he told him sternly, giving his bare toes a rap. "I'll take it off for you when the time comes, but otherwise you might have a difficult time of it, given that there's no record of this. But something tells me that's not high on your list of things to worry about."

"The doctor finally gets one right." Sherlock shifted uncomfortably again, crinkling the paper on the exam table and gritting his teeth with every movement. He'd looked unspeakably unhappy before. Now, with his right leg immobilised in a heavy and garish lime green cast, John wasn't quite sure he'd seen those ears perk up even once.

John hesitated again.

Greg had, at the very least, brought over a chance of clothes. By the shortness of the leg and the broadness of the sweatshirt's shoulders, he could tell that these weren't even Sherlock's. But Greg was still keeping his mouth shut about just who Sherlock was, and why on earth the need for all the secrecy. John trusted Greg, at least far enough to believe that he wasn't here doing something that he'd wind up needing an alibi for later... but that didn't even come close to explaining what the hell was going on.

It was still raining outside. A tired drizzle, now, the storm worn out with every day that it dragged on. John's shoulder and leg still ached, and Sherlock's messy hair was still drying, even from that short hobble through the rain.

He opened his mouth, and the words came out before he'd given so much as a single moment to think about it.

"Stay with me."

Sherlock, previously occupied with trying to scratch just at the top of the cast, stiffened in a cross between surprise and outright alarm.

"Just for a few weeks," he hastened to add, sitting back down even as Greg stared at him with wide eyes and Sherlock sat frozen on the table. "You'll want to keep off your feet if you can, I'm not home all that often anyway, and... I'm guessing you've not got anywhere else to go."

Sherlock's bright, inescapable eyes narrowed. He bristled as he twitched back, pulling his arms closer to himself, his leg shifting against the table. "Did you and Lestrade gossip while I was waiting on that infernal scan?"

"No, I just happen to have eyes and experience and can recognise a homeless patient when I see one. You look like my bed is the most comfortable place you've slept in a week."

He bristled again, ears perking straight against the mess of his hair. He looked wrong-footed for a moment and squirmed, gaze darting to Lestrade and back, and again John was reminded of the twitchy hybrid that he had looked at the night before and flinched back just at being touched.

"You only have one bed," Sherlock said at length, his voice low, the words almost a stutter. Bright eyes bounced again to land right on him. "Your leg, and... your shoulder. You were shot?" He tilted his head in the slightest of scowls. "You were shot. Somewhat recently. You're already uncomfortable after sleeping last night on that dreadful excuse for a sofa; you might actually die if you tried to do it for weeks."

"So you snooped through my flat?" John raised an eyebrow, daring him to proceed on the challenge. "If it really bothers you, now that your leg is in a cast, I'll take the bed. But you need somewhere to sleep, and I'm a doctor. I'll be able to help you better than Greg." Another moment passed in silence, Sherlock remaining stiff and silent, and John looked between the two of them again, spreading his hands. "What's the problem?"

Neither replied at first, and Sherlock's gaze slid between him and Greg and back again. His silver, almost catlike eyes, unerringly bright and blue and green, and they pierced through John with something uneasy shifting on his face. There was a loud crinkle of paper again: this time, from his thin hands suddenly clenching against the edge of the table.

"You said that you wanted to get a pair of crutches for him here, too, didn't you?" Greg spoke up suddenly, drawing up to his full height beside him. "Come on, I'll help you look for them. Be just a minute, Sherlock."

His end goal of speaking to John alone couldn't have been clearer. It was also, very clearly, not a request.

John filed after him into the otherwise completely deserted waiting room, leaving the hybrid behind, and waited for the hammer to fall.

"What are your intentions here, John? Exactly?"

"To help someone out?" John raised an eyebrow back at him, even as he limped down the hallway. "Seriously, Greg. Isn't that why you brought him to me in the first place?"

Greg let another moment pass in silence, his fists stuffed into his pockets and his head down. "Sherlock's complicated," he said, in yet another uncomfortable echo to the night before. "You're probably one of the first people I've met that spent time with him and their first response was to try and spend _even more,_ I'll tell you that..."

Sure, Sherlock hadn't exactly been the friendliest bloke. He really hadn't said much at all, but what little he had expressed had been prying and rude. But in the same manner, he'd left John wanting... more. Even in those few words that he had said, he was like nobody that John had ever met before. After the army, he wasn't exactly put off by a few clipped words and an eye roll.

And it really didn't hurt that it was quite apparent that Sherlock had nowhere to go. What was he supposed to do, turn a man with a broken leg out onto the street?

"You said he was a colleague of yours, didn't you?" he asked, coming to a halt upon having at last dug a pair of crutches out his surly patient. "What is he, undercover or something? Shouldn't he have somewhere to go?"

"Sherlock's not an officer. He..." Greg pinched at the bridge of nose again, like trying to press away a headache. It looked as if he changed course at the last moment. "He's not a-- pet or a stray cat, John. He's not going to thank you for this."

"I'm not asking for thanks! If you're that worried, he doesn't have to stay with me, he doesn't have to stay with me at all, of course, it's his choice, but who do you take me for? You know me, Greg!"

"...yeah. Yeah, I do." He accepted the crutches from John and looked him up and down, just once, a slow, speculative sort of exam. "I suppose what I'm trying to tell you is that he's had a rough time with people in the past. It was hard enough to convince him to come to your flat at all, and I'm pretty sure he only did because he knew I was going to make him and that he couldn't run off. If you really want to do this, then I won't stop you, but you need to be careful with him. You can't screw this up."

Yeah. Yeah, he'd already figured as such himself.

He could tell Greg wasn't leaving the door open for him to pry. All the same, John wasn't an idiot. He had treated hybrids before. He'd also treated domestic abuse cases before. And he knew that it was very common for hybrids to fall into the latter. Looking the way that they did-- they simply tended to attract a certain sort of partner. The kind that wanted a pet more than an equal.

_He's not a-- pet or a stray cat, John._

He didn't really have to think all that hard about why Sherlock was so discomforted, or why Greg was suddenly so wary.

And on one hand, it really sounded saner in every way, shape, and form for him to just call it quits. Why, exactly, should he try and play host in his tiny bedsit for a jumpy, injured, secret patient that clearly didn't want to be there? Greg was offering. Sherlock clearly already trusted Greg.

John rubbed his leg again, gritting his teeth, and steeled himself.

Maybe he was just tired of feeling useless.

He returned back to Sherlock with Greg on his heels, standing in the doorway to look at the very strange man still perched just on the edge. "Got them!" he announced, offering the pair of crutches across the room. "And what about you? Have you decided what you want to do?"

No matter John's conviction, it was, still, Sherlock's choice. If this wasn't what he wanted, then that was the end of it.

The hybrid watched him for a moment longer, eyes bright underneath long lashes and his dark ears perked up on his head. His face was entirely inscrutable, but at the very least, no longer hostile. Now he simply observed John with a calm, flat stare.

"All right," he said finally, and the end of his tail flicked. "I'll go with you."

* * *

As Greg had promised, it was not easy.

Sherlock was mobile, albeit with some discomfort. This seemed to make him all the more annoyed with the bulky cast relegating him to pajamas and preventing him from moving with anything approaching speed or grace. He sulked on the sofa in a thick cocoon of blankets and smoked out the window and in general tried to make himself as much of an irritating menace as he could. One would've thought that he owned the place by the sheer amount of _whinging_ that that man was capable of.

Quite frankly, the only reason this hadn't already ended in an attempted strangulation was because John spent the days at the surgery.

The second morning, when John made tea while Sherlock occupied himself with just staring, a prodded interrogation came. "You were shot."

Oh, _this_ again. "Yes," John said, voice clipped. He clattered the tea cup down so hard it was a wonder it didn't crack.

"In the shoulder. A potentially problematic injury, for an army doctor."

_"Yes."_

"But you were not shot in the leg. That injury _is_ psychosomatic."

"I told you before, if you have questions, just ask." He pushed a cup of tea across the table with enough vehemence to slosh scalding liquid onto his own hand and sat back to almost seethe, his skin crawling and his leg burning. "Don't go through my things."

But Sherlock just _smirked_ at him, his mouth in a smug, faint little twitch, and his eyes were stormy and dark as the ongoing rain outside. "And I told you that I'd done no such thing. I _observe,_ John; it's hardly my fault that the masses are incapable of simply opening their eyes and _looking."_

"Right." John scowled back, again clenching his fists together underneath the table. "And you just spend your time observing my entire life's story, then."

Sherlock sat quietly, his gaze lowered back down to the table. He added milk and sugar to his cup, enough of it to ruin the tea, as far as John was concerned, and for a moment just busied himself with warming his hands. His tail curled happily at the first sip, ears almost straight up, and he could've passed for a contented cat.

"I was curious," he said finally. His voice was low and his gaze flicked back away, fingers still curled against the cup. "The people that tend to seek my company have historically had an ulterior motive and does not tend to be a pleasant one. I was simply curious as to what yours would be."

Which just confirmed everything that Greg had said, then. Sherlock was wary because he'd learned he'd had to be.

"And so I passed your test, then?" John asked, raising an eyebrow. Even with how little he knew about this unbearably strange man, he could already tell that Sherlock was not the type to appreciate being coddled or handled with kid gloves.

Sherlock watched him over the rim of his cup with narrowed, guarded eyes, and took another sip of tea.

"To be determined."

John smiled.

For now, he'd take what he could get.

He waited until he was halfway out the door, on his way out into the rain for yet another miserable day, to glance back over his shoulder with yet another half-smile. "I thought you didn't like milk?"

Sherlock hunkered even deeper into his blanket, ears stood up on end. He slurped very noisily at his tea, glowering again over the rim. "I never said that. I just don't appreciate the assumption that I do from morons that liken my taste buds to that of a cat's." He slurped again, finishing off his cup in a single gulp, and murmured, "Don't forget your umbrella."

John snagged his umbrella back from where it waited against the door, and made a mental note to pick up more milk on the way home.

* * *

On day three, John came home to find Sherlock curled up on his sofa, just about elbow-deep in a collection of files and an absolute mess of paperwork, complete with a pen stuck messily behind one ear.

Sherlock barely so much as mumbled a hello to him. He certainly didn't pay attention enough to stop John from lingering behind him to see that his hands were full of _police files._

John was pretty sure Sherlock was not supposed to have these. Just as he was pretty sure Sherlock was not actually Lestrade's _colleague,_ no matter what the man had said, and yet the only way the injured man could've gotten them was if Lestrade had stopped by to drop them off himself. Which, again, was something he was pretty sure Lestrade would not do for just anyone.

"Busy day?" he joked, raising an eyebrow. "Keeping the streets of London safe from my couch?"

Sherlock blinked slowly, bright blue eyes fixated still on his current sheet. He ran his tongue over his lips and inhaled through his nose. John really couldn't tell if Sherlock even knew he was there.

John fixed two cups of tea, and, after a moment of thought, added a cheap bowl of biscuits to the mix. Despite being rail-thin and clearly in dire need of several dozen square meals, he'd had rather disastrous luck at getting the hybrid to eat so far, but maybe...

He placed the hot cup of tea on the coffee table, safely out of range from where it could be kicked in Sherlock's shuffling. The bowl, he tucked into the corner of the sofa, fighting for space between a cushion and his elbow.

A few moments passed. Sherlock turned another sheet, sucking his lip in between his teeth.

Then, he scooped up a biscuit without so much as a word or a blink, and, mechanically, almost like he wasn't even aware of it at all, began to chew as noisily as he could.

John grinned.

It was some twenty minutes later, after he'd finally dragged himself together enough to toss a cup of instant noodles into the microwave and fight a series of yawns, when Sherlock suddenly perked up, ears twitching. "John? Is that you?"

"Been here almost half an hour, Sherlock."

"How quickly does propofol take effect?"

"...about two minutes, usually? Assuming the proper dose?"

"Hm." Sherlock sucked on the end of his pen for a moment longer, scowling. "And how long will the proper dose last?"

What on earth sort of file was he _reading?_ "About ten minutes, in an average case. You know I'm not an anesthesiologist, yeah?"

Sherlock shuffled his shoulders a bit, sinking deeper into his blankets. "Yes. But you are a good doctor." He crunched noisily on his biscuit for a moment, ears still tall and twitching. "And if you were to attempt to overdose somebody on propofol--"

"How about you let me see the file, and stop sounding like you're planning a murder and trying to make me your accomplice?"

Another moment passed without a word. Sherlock tilted his head and twitched his ears, still chewing alternatively on a biscuit and his lower lip. His long tail snuck about, slipping through his blanket to peak out at the top and flick at John, like a hand wave or a wink, and the microwave beeped.

"If you insist," he landed on at last, as loftily as he could. He lifted his chin, his long back arced, a gentle curve through the blankets. "But only so long as you save some of those for me. I'm famished."

* * *

It wasn't until just before the weekend when John got home from the surgery, still stiff, sore, and just a bit damp, and was greeted by an empty sofa.

He lingered a moment by the door, a frown just starting to crease its way into existence. "Sherlock?" Slowly, gingerly, John dropped his bag just inside, sweeping his small sitting room for any sign of him. The blanket nest on the couch was occupied only with stacks of folders and an abandoned, empty cup of tea. Sherlock's crutches were missing.

"Sherlock!" he called again, slightly louder, now. He knew Sherlock snooped about his flat a bit when he wasn't home, equal parts curiosity and self-preservation, but not like this. "It's John; I'm home! I brought takeaway!"

Again, there was no answer.

John's frown deepened.

He glanced for the kitchen first, and was entirely unsurprised to find it entirely untouched. Again at the mess on the sofa, and then he started to head back towards his room. If Sherlock was snooping, it'd be in there.

He lurched to a stop three steps short, eyes wide, and blinked down into the loo instead.

A half-naked Sherlock waited for him, cramped into the small space of the floor. His hair and skin were damp and his face faintly flushed, and all he had on him was the cast and a towel draped about his waist.

"Hello, John," he gritted out, and his tail flicked.

"Uh."

Sherlock's tail flicked miserably again. It was just as damp and forlorn as the rest of him.

Finally shaking it off, John moved to stand in the doorway, folding his arms to look his patient over. He didn't seem to be in any worrying amount of pain or stress, so urgency could be delayed for a moment. "Let me guess," he started. "You decided to take a shower on your own-- against my explicit instruction, by the way-- fell getting out, and weren't able to get up."

His wet ears twitched. He almost started to even pout.

"...It was a bath," Sherlock said finally. "Not a shower."

Oh, yes. Because that made it so much better. "Right." He swallowed and rubbed his face, breathing back the mix of exasperation and fondness that had welled up all at once. "Come on, then. You don't think you hurt anything, did you?"

Sherlock shook his head as John joined him on the floor, getting one long arm over his shoulder and wrapping one of his own around his skinny waist. Wet, long-limbed, and clunking about in a cast; oh, this was going to go  _ great _ .

"You can cease fussing any moment now, John-- I am perfectly fine. Perhaps aside from my pride."

"You do realise this is _ why  _ I told you to let me know when you wanted to shower?" Without waiting for an answer, John took in a deep breath, gritting his teeth, and tightened his hold around the man by his side. 'Three, two, one--"

Together, they moved from the wet floor back upright and into the hallway. Sherlock hobbled along next to him with gritted teeth and a face flushing pinker by the second, but was clearly out of breath and had had quite enough of sitting alone on a cold floor for today. John didn't want to think about how long Sherlock had been in there before he'd gotten home.

With much huffing and puffing, they finally managed to return to the sofa, where Sherlock dropped away from him as abruptly as if burned. John's own leg aching now, and his patience left somewhere about at the door, he forewent privacy, personal space, and any previous thoughts to tea, and instead just sank his way down onto the opposite end as the hybrid wormed his way immediately back into a new set of pajamas. His head emerged from the sweatshirt with his hair and ears an almost boyish mess and he stared intensely just about anywhere but at John.

"You're sure you're not in any pain?" John asked, after giving Sherlock a few moments to settle. He didn't  _ look  _ to be in much pain, at least, but still... "I know you said you didn't want anything before, but if that changes--"

_ "John,"  _ he sighed again, face dropped to knead against his hand. He shifted and winced and shifted again, as if trying to push himself so far back into the corner he disappeared into it. "Surely Lestrade already told you not to give me anything beyond paracetamol."

"Not to..."

John's eyes widened. Slowly, the pieces slid into place. Homeless patient... working off the books... those long sleeves that he always clung to...

Had Lestrade set him up with a sodding _drug_ _addict?_

"Are you--"

"A user," Sherlock filled in, sounding very, very tired. "And not currently. Lestrade refuses to give me case files if I'm using."

"Not  _ currently? _ What the hell does that mean? When was the last time you--"

"The point is, I'm not using now, but it's likely not advisable for you to make me to want to." He sank deeper back into the cushions with a sigh, again looking as if he was trying-- and failing-- to make himself comfortable. For someone who had just confessed to being a drug addict he looked unfairly at ease, and even moreso next to John's rising sense of discontent.

It took a few moments for Sherlock's attention to direct back onto him at all. When it did, it was with nothing more than a raised eyebrow and a blink. "This... upsets you."

"Well, doctors don't tend to enjoy finding out that their patients inject poison into their veins, no, Sherlock."

"No, no. No, it's not that..." He tilted his head, blinking at him through long lashes. The excitement of a puzzle started to glow in his eyes and his ears perked up again, like a cat that had found a mouse. "It's your sister, isn't it? She's an addict. That's why the two of you fell out... yes, and that's why you live here, isn't it? You hate it here, it's quite obvious, and you could afford better if you went to family for help, but you don't approve of her, and her ch--"

John shoved to his feet, switch flipped from irritated to incensed in the space of a heartbeat. Sherlock snapped his mouth shut but whatever else crossed his face, John didn't know or care, as he instead limped to the kitchen with the only goal in mind being to not snap and shout at him.

Maybe the reason Sherlock didn't have anyone to turn to for help was because he spilled horrible personal details out about their lives at the drop of a hat.

He stood in the kitchen with his back to Sherlock, the sitting room, and the world in general, glowering down at the kettle with a vein throbbing in his throat. It wasn't too long before he heard rustling behind him, the loud sounds of movement because this Sherlock was simply incapable of grace, but John kept his back turned and head down. He had no interest in allowing for Sherlock to continue his deductions, and had no reason at all to expect him to do anything but.

He was certainly not ready for the next word out of Sherlock's mouth:

"Apologies," he murmured, almost raspy, then cleared his throat. "Not good?"

John scowled again, still with eyes only for the kettle. "A bit not good, yeah."

Sherlock shifted behind him, scraping a chair noisily into place. "I see," he said. Then again, "Apologies. It wasn't my intention to... show off."

And yet. Somehow. That was what kept happening anyway.

John poured out two cups of tea in silence, listening to the unsteady pattern of Sherlock shifting behind him. When he finally turned back around, it was to find that he looked almost forlorn, his ears and tail drooping, but his face was smooth as stone as John wordlessly slid one of the cups over to him.

"How did you know?" he asked finally. At first he thought it was just to break the silence, but then as he sat there, staring at the withdrawn silent man, also to get that miserable look off his face. Despite how the words had wounded, he knew that it was true-- Sherlock really hadn't intended to cause harm. "About my sister, I mean. I don't keep anything of hers here. I don't... I don't talk about her at all."

Sherlock was quiet at first, gauging him with wary eyes as he sipped his tea. He watched him as if clearly waiting for the other shoe to drop, probably because, in his own life experience, it always did. Like it or not, John knew that Sherlock probably had very, very good reason to expect this to only be able to end badly.

So he could do nothing in return but sit patiently and wait, and hope Sherlock saw him for who he truly was.

At last, when John did not snap at him again, something slowly, almost achingly carefully, began to soften. "Correct," he said, and ducked his head back close to his tea. "That was the first clue. You have been recently, very recently, invalided home, to the point that you are still recovering. You are in exactly the sort of situation that one tends to rely on family through, and yet you live alone, in a dreadful flat that you quite clearly detest, and never make any mention of family at all. This, on top of the fact that simply examining the few pictures that you do have in the flat confirmed the existence of a sister, a sister that is noticeably drunk even in the pictures of your graduation..." He trailed off to smile slightly again, just barely, looking at John in a way that was shy and proud all at once. "That would be the gist of it, I think. Quite a simple process, really-- if one only takes the proper time to observe."

John stared.

"That's... amazing," he started, all but reeling against the table. "I mean-- a bit dickish, too. But that's amazing, Sherlock."

"It's observation," Sherlock corrected, but his gaze was stuck down on the table even as his face flushed and his ears perked straight, the end of his tail flicking back and forth. "Anyone could do it if they tried."

"You might be vastly overestimating the intelligence of  _ most people _ there, Sherlock."

"Yes, well, most people are idiots."

Compared to Sherlock, actually, they probably were. John leaned back against the wall with his tea, watching the man in sheer mystification and awe; Sherlock, on the other hand, seemed to be completely oblivious. While John stared, he dropped his head down to his hands, cheek rubbing against his sleeve like a cat that wanted to be scratched, and he finally took a bite from the egg roll he'd carried over from the takeaway. His tail swished back and forth in glee, and for a moment John almost wanted to just pet him to see what would happen. At this rate, he wouldn't have been surprised if it made him purr.

Instead, his own face flushed and warm now, because that was a catastrophically  _ stupid  _ idea, John limped for the takeaway himself.

"What else have you figured out about me, then?" he asked, splitting a pair of chopsticks. "What else have you  _ deduced?" _

"...you just told me not to do that. To deduce things about you."

"I..." John sat against the arm of the sofa, now looking at Sherlock's back. His tail still flicked eagerly about, but his shoulders had gone tense and his ears had, too; like a turtle withdrawing into its shell. The eager excitement from before was all but gone, and when he realised what had happened, he could've kicked himself.

Right. Had to tread carefully.  _ Right. _

"I don't like talking about Harry," he corrected gently. "That's-- that's not good, Sherlock. Bringing up family like that. So... yeah, I'd appreciate it if you left my family out of it. But... I'm asking, now. Really. What you can do is  _ amazing  _ and it's honestly incredible to hear you talk it through."

Once, in university, John's friends had dragged him to see a psychic. They'd all been a bit punch drunk, of course, and none of them had actually taken it  _ seriously _ , god, no, but at the end of the day, he'd still found himself curious. Of course psychics weren't real, but on the other hand... how accurate was he going to be? How much could he tell about John from a single glance?

Something told John that the wary hybrid sitting in his kitchen, ears low and tail long and watching him just out of the corner of his amazing eyes, was going to have a bit more to say than the tea-leaf-reading-charlatan that charged ten quid next to a Tesco's.

"Well," he started at last. Slowly, at first, wary, but at least daring to dip a toe in. To test the waters. "I know that you don't sleep well at night. You often have nightmares, but you choose to pass the time reading on your phone... either because you labor under the false delusion that I am unaware, or, more charitably, you don't wish to disturb me. Both are ridiculous premises. If you want to be distracted with a case file, you only need to ask; I'm most likely not asleep, either." He swiveled about a bit, frowning at John out of the corner of his eye. "Speaking of case files, I know that you want to continue with them. You are quite clearly bored out of your skull at that insipid surgery and only persist there because you don't see any other option, but you hate it. You miss being a surgeon, but you miss the war even more. Your therapist diagnosed you with depression, which you hated, and rightfully so; you're miserable because of your life circumstances, not because of a neurochemical imbalance. Assisting me with case files seems to be the most enjoyment out of anything that you've gotten in weeks."

Another sip of tea, and now Sherlock had turned fully to face him, leaned back against the counter and picking up speed. "Your limp is psychosomatic," he kept on, at last gaining the confidence back that clung to him like a second skin. "You don't admit it, because it's an embarrassing thing to admit, but you know that it's true. You never sustained any injury in your leg at all. That said, the longer it persists, the more useless you feel, which in turn exacerbates the cycle. It's pitiful, in a way."

"Oh, well, thank you."

"No thanks necessary," Sherlock mused, the sarcasm clearly passing straight over his head. He folded his hands tighter together, for just a moment pressing his interlocked fingers against his mouth, then made a faint humming sound that was almost a purr. "I have a place, actually. If you should like to move."

John blinked again. "You... have a place," he started, somewhat thrown by the non-sequitur. "I'm sorry?"

"Yes," Sherlock said, shoulders hitching in a loose shrug. "Or, more accurately, I have the money, and I know the landlady. It's a wonderful place down in central London; I'm sure Mrs. Hudson would--"

He nearly spat out his drink.  _ "Central London? _ Sherlock--" It was sweet, in a way, if also almost unbearably naive. "Sherlock, I'm sorry, I appreciate the offer, but I don't think you realise how much rent is in central London. You don't--"

"John. For  _ god's sake _ . I'm rich."

"--have the... I'm sorry,  _ what?" _

"Rich," Sherlock repeated, very slowly, staring at John as if he thought he were very, very stupid. "I could buy a car with my credit card rich. I know how much the rent is. It's not a problem." He glanced back up to meet his eyes with a slow, spreading smirk. "I don't want an address, so I don't have one. That does not mean I lack the funds to procure one."

For several moments, John had no idea at all what to do except sit there and be stricken. He wasn't even sure what was the most baffling part about this-- his homeless patient announcing out of the blue that he had more money in his account than John had probably ever seen in his life, or being offered a gold star flat by a bloke he'd barely known for a week. When Lestrade had warned him that Sherlock was complicated,  _ this  _ was absolutely not what he'd seen coming.

At last, John just gave in, holding his hands up in mock surrender.  _ No more.  _ "You're incredible. You know that, right?" He passed by a pink-faced Sherlock again, and this time actually did dare to give him the quickest scratch around the ears as he moved for the window instead.

Sherlock was right. He hated this place. He hated the dreary street, he hated the quiet, he hated how far it was from everything. He hated the miserable furniture and chipping paint on the walls and the slope on the street outside that soaked his shoes whenever it rained. But he didn't make much, and when he'd come home from Afghanistan, this had been all he'd been able to afford.

But an offer like this? A place in central London, a favour from the landlady, and all in return for what? The fact that John had been nice to Sherlock? It came across almost as if he'd never so much as had a friend before... and, John realised unhappily, that might well have been the case. He might've been the first person aside from Lestrade to just be kind to Sherlock. In years, or... perhaps even in his entire life. It felt wrong to take such an amazing gift in return for it, transactional, not friendship at all but an act closer to a business-deal.

Even though he  _ would  _ kill to finally be able to move away from this damned silent, utterly  _ boring  _ street...

That had someone standing outside on it.

John frowned, nudging aside the curtain a little more to squint. It was dark, and the man was across the street, so it was hard to see. But there was very definitely a man there. A man standing out on the street, leaning quietly up against his car... and either John was paranoid, or he was looking right at his flat.

No. No, that wasn't it, of course not. It wasn't that late; he had to be waiting for someone, or just taking a break, obviously. That was it. He was just being paranoid; this was absurd. There was nobody in his life that he had pissed off enough to have them show up at his flat like this...

Behind him, Sherlock cleared his throat, and bit noisily into another egg roll. The papers crinkled as he shook out another file to start to read.

A sense of unease started to form in John's stomach.

_ He  _ didn't have anyone that would show up at his flat like this, no.

Did Sherlock?

"Hey, Sherlock?" He waited at first for some sort of acknowledgement, but when none came, found that he was unable to so much as tear himself away from the window. "I think... okay, I know this is going to sound crazy. But I think there's someone outside."

There was another rustle of papers and the sound of Sherlock shifting again, his cast clunking against the table. "If it's my brother, tell him to go away. You're not interested in whatever he's selling."

"Well, I don't know, Sherlock, he's-- standing there. He's just  _ looking.  _ Does that sound like your brother, because if it does I think you might win the trophy for Worst Sibling."

"I do have the worst sibling. It's no contest." Sherlock shifted again, then suddenly stopped, his gaze piercing into John's back. "Did you say he's just standing there? Watching?"

_ "Yes!" _

Another moment passed in silence. John's unease hitched up another notch.

Then, Sherlock cleared his throat, this time with a decisive air, and started to limp back to the sofa. "That's nothing to worry about."

"Nothing to worry about? So you  _ do  _ know this person?" He turned around just enough to stare at him, unsure of whether to be shocked or horrified. "What the hell, Sherlock, should I be calling the police, what--"

"You shouldn't be doing anything except ignoring him. If he wants to stand outside in the cold all night, then he's free to it. The police will tell you just the same." He hunkered back into the sofa, drawing down enough that all he could see was the length of his legs, and the dangerous twitch of his ears. "You, likewise, are free to stand there staring at him all night, if that is what you want to do. To me, that sounds like an utterly miserable waste of time, and I would suggest dedicating your time to just about anything else. Leave it alone, John."

His words were perfectly calm and blasé, the speech of the most unbothered man in the world. Even as John watched, he turned another page in his folder, sunk down into the sofa to look as comfortable and at ease as could be.

His ears told the real story: flattened back against his hair, just as a wounded animal backed into a corner with no way out.

John, tense, glowered back out the window. The street remained quiet and entirely uneventful: just this strange man, standing there silently, looking to John's flat. If he did call the police, Sherlock would probably wind up being right-- as long as he was doing nothing but standing there, there was nothing that they could do.

As John watched, the man lifted a hand, and right to his window, gave a cheery little wave.

John drew the curtains back closed with a vigorous tug, and that night, slept with his loaded gun settled into his bedside table.

* * *

The man was back the next night.

Standing there on the street, silent and smiling, and when John looked for just a bit too long, greeting him with a little wave.

Sherlock, once again, blew it off. Blew it off with all the nonchalance in the world.

The night after that, he was back again.

Sherlock again told him to let it go. Promised that it was fine.

Well, Sherlock could kick his feet up and yawn about a sodding stalker all that he liked. When said stalker started _stalking John's flat,_ Sherlock's mysterious past transformed from _shit John can ignore_ into _shit he really, really can not._

Which was why, on the third morning, standing outside the surgery in the early morning with his jacket zipped up to his neck and his shoulder aching in the cold, he at last dialed for reinforcements.

"How many days has it been there, now?"

"Three. At least. I think it was more." He broke off to chew angrily on his lower lip, silently berating himself as he lingered just outside the surgery. "I'm sorry, Greg. I should've paid closer attention."

"No, no. It's not your fault. I asked for your help as a doctor, not a... bloody bodyguard. I should've figured this would happen, anyway." There was a few moments of typing after the baffling statement, the clack of the keys loud and brash through the phone, and then: "Describe him for me. Was he a redhead? Did he have an umbrella?"

"An... umbrella? What?" John frowned again, blinking out at the street as if the stranger might just materialise right in front of him. "No, he had dark hair, he-- what are you talking about?"

Greg typed for another moment still, then sighed, long and quiet. "There's a few people that tend to follow Sherlock around. Some of them are more worrisome than others."

...right.

What the hell had Greg gotten him mixed up in, exactly?

Another thought occurred to him, this one that sent a chill down his spine and his heart all the way down to his toes. "Sherlock's home alone. Right now, Greg, he's home alone. With this person on the street." His gun was at home, too, not that he'd told Sherlock that-- but Sherlock knew everything anyway-- and _fuck_ it said volumes about just how bad this situation was that he was _glad_ a homeless addict had access to his illegal firearm, didn't it? Fuck-- "Greg, I didn't know, he's--"

"Relax, John. It's okay. I've dealt with this guy before. He's not going to do anything."

"He's been standing on the street outside my flat for days!"

"Yeah," Greg sighed. "Because that's what he does. He intimidates people, and scares them, and throws his weight around, but he doesn't touch. He's... he's learned not to touch."

"He's _learned not to?"_

Which meant he had before. He had done a lot worse than standing smiling out on the street _before._

Maybe this was the piece of Sherlock's past that had been kept from him until now. Maybe this person was the reason that Sherlock had been so wary of him when they had first met. The reason that Sherlock had been wary of him for days afterward, and turned surly or withdrawn or glowering at the slightest nudge, and even now drew back away from him when it looked like he wanted nothing more than a hug.

Maybe _this person,_ John realised, with an increasingly intense stab of revulsion, was the one that had been lurking behind the curtain this entire time.

"Look, John," Greg started, his voice grim. "I'm so sorry about this. I really don't think he's a danger to you, but I also didn't think he'd show up at your place. I can come by and pick up Sherlock tonight. You shouldn't have t-"

"Hang on. _Hang on,_ I never said that. Give me a second here; I'm... I'm not running away scared from _him."_

"John..."

Greg's reaction was all but confirming it. This person, this strange, suited man smiling at John on his way down the street, was the one that had hurt Sherlock.

John wasn't just a doctor. He certainly wasn't just a doctor sent home with a bad shoulder and a limp, the career he'd spent ten years training for thrown off the tracks and smashed to bits, utterly useless. He was a _soldier._

And something told John that Sherlock had already been abandoned enough in his life.

Another few moments passed in silence. Finally, heavily, Greg sighed again. "Tell you what. I'll swing by your place in a day or two with some more case files for Sherlock, and on the way I'll pass you one about-- this situation. If you're going to do this, you at least need to be informed about what you're getting yourself into. If you want to pull out after that, I'll understand."

"I won't. I _won't_ ," he swore, and he meant it. He was not going to leave Sherlock alone, and he most _certainly_ wasn't going to be scared of some smarmy smiling schmuck in a suit waving at him from the street.

"That's fine. All I'm saying is if you change your mind, that's fine, too. I know you're going through a lot right now, so Sherlock will be safe with me-- the important thing is that you're safe, too. And, John..." Greg was silent for another long moment, nothing but breath passing over the line. "Be careful."

The DI hung up with nothing more than that, and left John standing there with an ache in his leg and a cold knot in his stomach. He swept his gaze up and down the street, searching in silence and in vain for any sign of any waiting black car complete with a smiling, smug little shit.

John gritted his teeth again, pulling his jacket tighter in the brusque cold, and limped back into the surgery without another word.

* * *

True to his word, when John got home the next night, again bearing takeaway over his arms and fighting off a round of shivering from the cold outside, it was to find Sherlock neck deep in a stash of brand new files. As he was coming to learn was the man's custom, Sherlock paid him no attention whatsoever, and responded with nothing at all more than a grunt when John asked him how it was going.

"Help yourself to it," John said, settling the food-- Italian, this time-- within reach on the table. "I'm just going to get changed. Be back in a second."

This once again garnered no reaction at all. Sherlock simply curled even tighter into his ball, his tail wrapping lazily about in his lap.

John, after another uncomfortable moment spent shifting further onto his good leg and waiting for the acknowledgement that wasn't going to come, at last just gave in to the gnawing knot of curiosity, and strode back to his room.

Sure enough, Greg had left a dozen cold case files in Sherlock's possession. He had also, at some point in the visit, left a thin stack for John. Just sitting there waiting on his pillow like a mint in a hotel.

He cast a surreptitious glance over his shoulder. No sign or sound of Sherlock.

Taking in a deep breath, John settled back into his bed, and started to read.

The first file dated back just over four years ago, to a much younger Sherlock and when John had been preparing to deploy to Afghanistan. He had to assume that it was Sherlock, at least, because the subject's name had been redacted-- just about everything useful had been redacted. The only name here at all was, in fact, Lestrade's, as the arresting officer.

The first file was also not what he was looking for. Because the first file was simply a possession charge against who John, again, had to guess had been a homeless Sherlock. He'd turned up at a crime scene high as a kite and with cocaine in his pockets to spare. _CPS declined to prosecute._

The second file was the same, two months later. A homeless, unidentified man, his name stricken from the record, turned up in a raid on a dosshouse. Again charged with possession, and once again: _CPS declined to prosecute._

Chewing on the inside of his cheek, his confusion and unease rising, he flipped onto the third. Another crime scene, and Lestrade wrote how Sherlock had gotten into a fist fight with one of the officers. He could tell by Lestrade's notes that while Sherlock hadn't started the fight, he had finished it, and the other officers on scene hadn't exactly been very forgiving of a smart-mouthed intoxicated vagrant no matter the fact that Sherlock hadn't thrown the first punch. This time, Sherlock had been held in police custody for two weeks, before all charges had been dropped with no explanation. Probably mid-detox, about ready to crawl out of his skin, and so desperate for another hit he'd do anything to get it.

John swallowed hard, and continued on.

The files continued on in much the same vein. Sherlock getting himself into all sorts of minor trouble, turning up in drug raids or bar fights, breaking into crime scenes, consistently high, consistently being arrested-- yet never actually making it to court. Charges kept being dropped or never filed in the first place, to the degree that John was sure somebody else besides Lestrade had to be pulling the strings here. Anybody else and this story would've ended with Sherlock in jail years ago.

As the strange story progressed on, the files started to meander off track. Lestrade left longer and more pointed notes with each one, mentioning bruises; sometimes there were medical reports that detailed an increasingly unwell patient that sorely needed treatment. Malnourishment, a tox screen that consistently came back positive for more than he wanted to think about, badly healed older fractures-- John had noticed a stiffness in Sherlock's right arm, and was horrified to find out that he had been _right._ More than once, Lestrade's report said he was suspicious that Sherlock hadn't taken the drugs of his own free will at all.

Twice, the files even included pictures. Never of his face, but pictures of bruises, all the same. Angry discolored marks along his stomach and torso, shockingly thin, a shoulder that had been wrenched out of the socket... ligature marks around his wrists.

The files developed a new refrain: instead of _CPS declined to prosecute,_ the sign-off became _subject declined to explain the source of his injuries._

Over and over again. Sherlock turned up high out of his mind and abused like a rag doll... and over and over, he refused to explain how it happened.

John wasn't left wondering.

He knew how it had happened.

He knew how all of this had happened.

The last file in the stack, the final piece of the puzzle, was dated now at two years ago. Two years long, this saga had taken-- from a homeless, strung out drug addict, to... what, exactly? An abuse victim?

He wasn't sure. Worse than that, he wasn't sure that he even wanted to know.

But whatever the story was, it had taken two years to tell. And now, he was at its ending: another medical report. Another array of pictures taken in A&E of bruises and likely broken bones, once again with a mysterious lack of any shot of Sherlock's face. Black and purple marks around his wrists, a sodding _bite mark_ in his shoulder, and this time, a deep necklace of bruises around his throat. Like the ones on his wrists. Not from fingers or being strangled, but from a ligature of some kind. A rope or tie or... collar.

_-subject identified [redacted] as assailant_

_-case referred to CPS for prosecution_

_-case taken by [redacted], refer all further developments in this matter to [redacted]_

"You could've just asked."

John jumped.

Sherlock leaned quietly in the doorway, propped up against the edge with sloped shoulders and a thin, tight smile. He raised an eyebrow down at John and flicked his tail in the same breath, the end trailing along the floor. "Isn't that what you told me?" he drawled, almost criminally smug. "Rather than snoop, I should _just ask?"_

John didn't know what to say. He was caught between the sting of having been found with his hand in the cookie jar, and that slow, terrible, burning seed of sick _anger._

He looked at Sherlock's long throat, and for a moment all he could see was the impression of bruises from the file.

At his silent stare back-- John didn't really want to even try imagining what was on his face right now-- Sherlock rolled his eyes again, shouldering off the doorframe to limp into the room. "I watched Lestrade walk back here with a stack of files, and then I watched you vanish in here to _get changed_ twenty minutes ago. It doesn't take a genius to put it together, and I am."

He really should've known better than to try and keep something from Sherlock.

Another moment passed under Sherlock's inspection, and John swallowed, willing himself to stay still. "Would you have answered if I had?" he asked, holding his ground. "Asked you?"

"...likely not, no."

John made to shut the file, then. He didn't want to see it anymore. But Sherlock's hand caught him mid-motion, tugging it back into his view. The last sheet that he'd ended on had been the picture of his pale, exposed neck. John cringed just to look at it, but Sherlock was nothing but calm.

"It's not at all as dreadful a story as you're thinking, you know," he murmured at length. Slowly, almost delicately, he flipped the file shut, and took it back into his own possession. His eyes were narrowed and sly. "Whatever Lestrade told you, I was not being abused. I could've left at any time."

"Except it looks like you did leave him, and now he's been standing outside my flat for the past week."

"Yes. Standing. Staring. Doing nothing." He swiveled to lean back against John's bed as if it were his own, steepling his fingers together. "You do understand that the presence of a bruise does not translate to non-consensual? I never said no. I _certainly_ never said no to the drugs."

John swallowed back his own rising wave of anger, forcing himself to not respond back. Sherlock was trying to distract. To deflect. From that file that Lestrade had thought it was so important for him to read, showing him beaten to hell, by that _bastard_ still lurking just down on the street.

When he could keep his voice steady, he pushed on.

"Did you say yes?"

Sherlock's face went cold, like a wall had slid down behind his blue-green eyes and shuttered every emotion off and away. He pinched his lips together and looked away, suddenly gone stiff all over, all the way up to the very tips of his pointed ears.

That was answer enough, then.

"It was my choice," Sherlock muttered finally, his voice distant. "It was always my choice to stay. It wasn't even... it wasn't entirely... I _liked_ it. Some of it." He folded in on himself just a bit, drawing one leg up close to fold his tail about and let his shoulders slump. "We were a good match, in that way. Jim just wanted more than I was interested in."

Yeah, John thought sourly, again picturing the smug, smiling bastard, just waiting down there for Sherlock like a parent picking up a child. _Clearly._

He could tell that an interrogation was the wrong way to go about this, especially when he had already gone behind Sherlock's back to get this far at all. Whatever Sherlock wanted to tell him, he would listen to. But an attempt to drag the answers out would only end badly.

When it became clear that he was not going to ask more, sure enough, something about Sherlock's features softened. He slid further down still until he was almost entirely on his side, balled up as best as he could get with his face smushed into one of John's spare jumpers. "People that look like me struggle to find traditional employment. Those of us that are willing and able to... to _play nice_ are able to make do. But-- I have no patience for such tripe."

John nodded slowly, not risking to move just yet. It was true. It wasn't that it was illegal for a hybrid to find work; just the opposite, in fact. Laws had been passed decades ago to officially end discrimination against hybrids, but law or not, someone that turned up to a job interview with a long, swishing tail and pointed ears and teeth was going to have a much harder time being taken seriously than someone that didn't. They had higher rates of homelessness, higher rates of mental illness, were more likely to be the victims of a violent crime...

And someone with Sherlock's attitude, utterly brilliant and brilliantly rude and sharp as a knife, had likely not had an easy time of it at all.

"Jim," Sherlock started again, a deeper frown creasing, then stopped. He swallowed roughly and his ears twitched down, like he was trying to make himself smaller. "It was an equal trade. He's a businessman, very successful, very high-profile-- but as you know, I didn't require funds. I only wanted the puzzles. The mysteries. Jim was able to provide me with private cases from his firm, had a certain pull with Scotland Yard, regardless-- all that I had to do in return was be available whenever he decided he wanted it. It wasn't often. Once a week, perhaps, sometimes twice." He swallowed, scowling off into the distance. "What I wanted was the puzzles. What he wanted was a pet. We used each other."

John clenched his jaw, and kept silent.

Slowly, when Sherlock did not continue on, John moved just a bit closer to rest his hand in his hair, the way Sherlock had responded so positively to before. He didn't react outwardly this time, but there was a low noise from his throat when John gently scratched around the ears, almost like a purr. He kept at it.

"Lestrade eventually struck a deal with me. A replacement deal... I could assist on his cases, which was a win for us both. All that I had to do in return was stay clean, and stay away from Jim. He'd been trying to get me to accept for a while before--" His lips pulled back slightly to show barred, pointed teeth, an almost hiss, and he flicked his tail at the abandoned file. "I knew that if I let it keep going I was going to end up dead. I decided I preferred to be alive. Even if that meant without drugs."

"And why the hell wasn't he arrested?"

Sherlock snorted. "Nobody _arrests_ Jim Moriarty."

John scowled back, feeling Sherlock's ears flick against his hands. With Lestrade's involvement, if Jim Moriarty still walked free, then he could only assume that Sherlock was right-- the sort of pull he had was far above either of their heads. Maybe that explained all the redactions in the files.

Jim Moriarty could have whatever connections and legal maneuvering that he wanted. None of it would serve to block a fist to his smug face.

"There's no need to get all riled up," Sherlock murmured, and it wasn't until then that he realised two silvery eyes had pierced into him again, half-lidded and bright even in the low light of his room. "He's harmless. As I've said. Lestrade scared him off from actually doing anything beyond intimidation."

"Well, then I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to give him a reminder."

But Sherlock just rolled his eyes again, looking particularly unimpressed. "I stayed with Lestrade, at first, to detox. He wouldn't let me go it alone. Jim dropped by one too many times to say hello and flaunt the fact that he was untouchable. Lestrade promised him the last time that charges might not be able to stick, but sooner or later, he'd shoot him for breaking into his flat in the middle of the night, damn the consequences-- and he meant it. Jim knew that he meant it. That was the last time that he ever tried anything that stupid with anyone that carries a gun."

John had never told Sherlock that he carried a gun. John was also not surprised in the least to see that he'd figured it out all on his own.

Another thought occurred to him, and he looked back down at Sherlock with a sense of sadness. "That's why you're homeless, isn't it?" He scratched around his ears again and this time was rewarded by a flick of the tail. "And why you wouldn't go to hospital. Anything official, putting your name down some place... Christ, he found you here, a complete stranger's flat, after you snuck inside during the middle of the night!"

"Yes," he murmured, blinking at John. If anything, he seemed actually relived that John had figured it out on his own. "As I said, I have the money. But he kept finding my address and to be quite honest, I prefer kipping at Lestrade's to having to worry about finding bugged flowers at my door." He hesitated again, starting to chew thoughtfully on the inside of his cheek. "I did find a place in central London. The flat that I told you about, the landlady that owes me a favour. It was the first place that I tried. I'd only been there a week when I came home to find them _having tea,_ and Jim just... watching her. Mrs. Hudson. She... looks like me, John."

"A hybrid."

"Yes," he said again, voice gone cold. "He wasn't interested in her, not really. That wasn't the point. I might have been under Lestrade's protection, but the rest of my life was not. And he wanted to make sure that I knew that."

So he'd left.

He couldn't blame him.

John took a deep breath, and just like that, something clicked.

Sherlock clearly sensed the change and twitched upright, but he was already on his feet, well outpacing any speed the injured man could ever reach. "John?" he started, and then again, "John!"

John was already out of the room and on his way out the door before Sherlock could call his name a third time.

It was still cold outside, had in fact gotten even colder since he'd made it home. But the damp rain had stopped, and the streetlights cut a faint, almost eerie sort of glow through the darkness. At this hour, there was nobody else on the street save for John, and the calm, waiting figure of Jim Moriarty.

John turned on his heel, and made a beeline.

He was a slight, decidedly unintimidating figure. Just a businessman in a suit, slim and pale and somehow _small,_ next to the monster that had been built up in John's mind. He even looked at him and had the gall to smile, like this was normal, like any part of this was even remotely okay, and that look on his face was abruptly one of the most infuriating things that John had ever seen.

"Hello," Jim began. His smile was now perhaps closer to a sneer. "John Watson, is it? Very lovely to meet you."

"You've got until I make it back to my door to get off my street. If I look out my window and you're still here, then you won't be leaving here under your own power."

"Oh? Now, isn't that sweet... tsk, tsk, John. Sherlock should've warned you about idle threats." His smile broadened, and John got the impression that he would've tipped his hat if he'd had one. "The police and I have something of an understanding. After all, there's nothing illegal about just saying hello."

John tugged up his shirt just enough to show his gun tucked into his waistband, and had the very distinct pleasure of watching Jim's smirk sour like milk.

"I'm not talking about calling the police," he said quietly, and meant it.

Another few moments passed in silence cold enough to freeze. Jim, to his credit, did not try to threaten him again, but he did not back away, either. Clearly, he was not pathetic enough to be frightened by the mere sight of a gun.

That was fine with John.

He could do more with his gun than show it off.

"And another thing," he started, when Jim kept silent. "Sherlock and I are going to move into a flat together. You already know it-- the one with Mrs. Hudson. And you're going to keep away from there, too. You are never going to so much as set foot onto the street. Because you seem like a smart man, Jim-- I'm sure you can figure out what'll happen to you if you do."

"Oh, there's no need for threats, now, John." Jim smiled slightly again, just the slightest sort of predatory leer as his gaze flicked from John to the flat and back again. "I'd never be of any danger to either of you. Sometimes I just want to say hello to my favourite pussy cat."

"Yeah? Well, not anymore." He dropped his shirt back down and strode a step forwards instead, and god damn it, god _damn it_ he wanted Jim to meet him there just so he could have the excuse to punch him right in the face. "You're going to lose Sherlock's number. You're going to lose his address. You're going to lose everything about him, and if I _ever_ so much as see you near him again, you won't be in any sort of shape to be calling for help from your friends at the Yard."

Then, he turned back on his heel, and walked back across the street to leave Jim Moriarty behind.

He didn't bother to remind him to make himself scarce. As far as John was concerned , he really was just fine with shooting him.

Sherlock had crossed back over to the window and stood there ramrod straight, staring at John with wide eyes and a face stricken with amazement. "He's leaving," he said, sounding stunned. His ears, before flattened back, like a snake about to strike, perked up in excitement, and his tail was quick to follow suit. "He's leaving, John, you-- what did you _say_ to him?"

"What, you can't deduce it on your own?" John grinned back, tugging the door shut behind him and locking it for good measure. "I'm sure he'll be back. But something tells me we'll be able to handle it when he does... just so long as we do it together."

Sherlock's gaze swept up and down him, piercing and brilliant, and his face warming with the slightest of smiles. "Yes," he murmured, then smiled even bigger. "You forgot something, by the way."

"Forgot--"

The hybrid slid his arm out from behind his back, and quick as lightning, tossed something to him across the room. John caught it on nothing more than reflex, just barely in time, and blinked downwards to find his cane.

Sherlock was waiting for him when he looked back up to wink. "Told you it was psychosomatic," he said, and his returned grin was bright and sunny and more brilliant than he'd ever seen him.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is welcome and always appreciated! Stay healthy, and happy holidays!
> 
> [Come say hi on tumblr!](https://problematic-ranowa.tumblr.com/)


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